History has a formidable talent for turning people into names, achievements into dates and experience into facts. Moments that shake us to the core today are sterilised for classroom consumption tomorrow, watered down each generation by contemptuously familiar indifference. Emotion, it seems, has no place in the history books.
It’s refreshing, then, in such fickle times, to witness the resurrection of storytelling. In the Shadow of the Moon does just that, bringing together 10 of the 12 surviving astronauts from nine Apollo space missions to tell their own tale in their own words. It soars because it feels like a slice of granddad’s story-time. It waivers, though, because it doesn’t stick to its naturalistic guns, pulling the oldest sentimental trick in the book – a relentless, eye-welling orchestral score that’ll get you weepy while screaming ‘Why?’
Emotional clobber aside, the astronauts’ personal experiences are done a great justice. Even the reclusive Neil Armstrong, whose hermitic tendencies kept him from participating, becomes more than just a page of history through the awe-struck insights of his lunar comrades. Most impressive is director David Sington’s ability to contrast the reality of human experience with the perceived reality of media hype, slicing archive footage – much of it never seen before – with intimate memories.
With each interview captured in crisp turbo definition, you’ll find yourself blasting off into space through the wrinkles, sunspots and glazy eyes of these last true explorers. From Buzz Aldrin’s honesty (he took a whiz as soon as he stepped foot on the moon) to Mike Collins’ unwavering Stars ‘n’ Stripes parochialism (“Around the world they said we, the human race, we people did it, and I thought that was a wonderful thing… if a bit ephemeral.”) their words are never buttered up nor ever dumbed down – and that’s a damn good thing.
